Social Capital

Meet Katie Katie is the founder of Paper Lime Creative, a branding, and design agency in Edmonton. Her love of design and art took shape and a young age and since then she has been soaking in as much knowledge about art, business, and design as she can. She takes the time to listen to people's unique stories and goals to deliver stand-out work. It's one of many reasons why Paper Lime Creative is known as a collaborative design agency. What is branding and why is it important? I define branding as every interaction people have with your business. So there's often a misconception that your logo is your brand, but it's actually a lot more than that. So it's our job at Paper Lime Creative to make sure that those touchpoints that your clients have with your business are impactful and meaningful and get you the right customers to serve. How does a business owner start that branding process? We recommend that business owners start that process by figuring out who they want to work with and who that ideal custom

Meet Claire Claire is a personal brand strategist and the CEO and Co-Founder of Claire Bahn Group. She has been helping high-achieving entrepreneurs, investors, founders, and executives create their best personal brand for over 10 years. As an entrepreneur and influencer with over 70,000 followers on social media, she has learned the importance of creating and maintaining your personal brand. Claire helps entrepreneurs leverage their personal brand to develop the authority, influence, and trust they need to exceed their business goals.  Can you share what personal branding is and why it matters to you so much? Basically, there are so many different nuances of personal branding. But really your basic personal brand is essentially what people think about you when they do a Google search on you or they meet you for the first time in person. It's literally someone's initial reaction to you, and how they feel about you whether they want to work with you and that sort of thing. So that's your baseline personal b

Meet Paul Paul is popularizing the concept C-com, the science of conversion, conversation, and automation. He founded Amplify C-Com, which helps grow businesses past seven figures through 80% human-like and 20% human experience. Amplify combines human psychology and automation to create more profits in their customers’ pockets. How do you apply the 80-20 rule to automation? So we find a lot of the time that people try and automate either 100% or not a bit. So they will go, "Let's automate everything, you know, I want to make everything evergreen so I can sit on a beach and drink pina coladas and not have to do anything." But when you do that you lose that human touch, and especially post-pandemic, people are looking so much more for that personal customer experience that I've been able to speak to a human, but in a way doesn't take up a lot of their time and they can do it in their own time so there's that instant gratification. What we look at is, how would you normally speak if you're having a conversati

Meet Ashley Ashley is an ex-corporate marketing executive for a $4 billion company turned to online marketing consultant who has helped hundreds of six, seven, and eight-figure online entrepreneurs create customer-centric marketing and sales strategies. As a certified NLP practitioner, Ashley believes the power of marketing is to teach your ideal clients how to think, not tell them what to do using a combination of psychographics and human behavior in your brand messaging. What is the number one mistake you see when it comes to messaging? It's kind of hard to narrow it down to one. But what I really see a lot specifically with clients that I've worked with is a lot of the time people will create content that doesn't really reflect their ideal client. What I mean by that, and one of the biggest things that I've found, especially through my NLP training and working with all these clients, the one thing that I've found that was so transformational was that your messaging and marketing is a reflection of your

Meet Tom Tom Andrews operates Andrews Media Ventures an independent PR communications consultancy based in Hartford, Wisconsin. Tom's background includes 35 years of major market broadcast news and public relations experience. Tom and his team have aligned professionals to help corporate and nonprofit clients raise their business and organizational profiles through services such as creative writing, PR console, media relations, spokesperson training, video production, voice talent, and special events support.  Besides using conventional online, print, broadcast, advertising, what other ways might a business or nonprofit organization consider to help raise public awareness about their products or services? Well, I'm not at all saying that conventional advertising and such are bad avenues to take. But in conjunction with that, I encourage my clients to think about earned media, grassroots type of methods of getting your message out. Earned media means coming up with angles that your company has that could be

Meet Lindsey She is a principal and owner of McMillion Consulting. Lindsey believes in the power of influence and is a connector to the core as a national and international speaker, writer, and prospecting trainer. Her expertise is founded on equipping successful professionals and teams to profitably connect with purpose on LinkedIn. She has worked with 1000s of people to help them drive millions in revenue. Lindsey believes teaching should be practical as learning is actionable love that she loves helping her clients win. Building relationships is all about establishing trust. How do we go about building trust on LinkedIn? I always talk about how LinkedIn is this powerful online tool, but at the end of the day, business and networking and connecting have always been social, even before the internet existed. Shaking hands, kissing babies, following up to people knocking on doors. So I like to just remind people that and part of this is just to let down the anxiety and fear that comes with using a powerful

Meet Elizabeth Elizabeth started her career in technology after securing an MBA from Loyola University in Maryland back in the early 90s. She climbed the career ladder and an early-stage startup in the commercial construction technology industry to Director of Business Development and demonstrated success driving multimillion-dollar sales growth while providing award-winning sales leadership. After a personal challenge managing her home, Elizabeth decided to build the very solution she needed to save money, save time and reduce her stress. Now she is the Co-Founder of HomeZada, an online and mobile home management portal that helps homeowners manage their homes to save time and money and reduce stress. Specifically, HomeZada educates homeowners in the areas of home management, inventory, maintenance, remodeling projects, and finances. She recently won the 2019 Female Founders and FinTech Pitch Competition and appeared on the NASDAQ channel. What made you take the leap to start your own software company? Or

Meet Paul Paul wears many hats, ghostwriting, agency founder, bestselling author, podcast host master networker, husband, father, older brother to younger men, amateur theologian,  voice mimic, and recovering insurance salesman. As a first-generation Spanish-speaking immigrant to the US with African heritage and the Middle East come back experience, Pual's lived in five different countries, speaks two languages, and holds three passports. Paul does two things well, words and people. When he isn't writing content for clients, you're most likely to find him building relationships and creating opportunities for his network.  Effective communication is something that you preach quite a bit. What role does effective communication play when it comes to growing your business? I've said for quite a while now, but one of the things that came to the forefront with me was that I make way more money with my ears than I do with my mouth. What I mean by that is that there's a tendency in everyday conversations when you'

Meet Shannon Shannon is the Executive Director of The Community, a nonprofit he founded while incarcerated to foster the successes, humanity, and agency of people with criminal records. He is also Co-Owner of Paradigm Shyft, a new Second Chance employment consulting agency that trains incarcerated people prior to release and helps employers benefit from this untapped pool both while incarcerated and post-release.  Meet Adam Three days after turning 15 years old, Adam was involved in a gang-related homicide and received a life sentence. He would become the youngest inmate within the walls of Wisconsin's most violent adult prison. But over the following 23 years of incarceration, he would renounce his gang membership and work tirelessly to keep teenagers from joining gangs. Today, Adam is dedicated to providing those released with the resources needed to succeed and making our community a safer place. What exactly does Second Chance employment mean and why should people care about it? Shannon: So second ch

Meet Lisa She is the President of Evolution Marketing, a Wisconsin-based women-owned certified B Corporation specializing in the area of global sustainability consulting and storytelling, environmentally responsible creative design, and ethical marketing. I keep hearing about the social side of sustainability, but I thought sustainability was only about recycling and addressing environmental issues. Can you define that for us? In all sincerity, the average American really believes that when you say sustainability, you're talking about the environmental side. True sustainability comes in a holistic manner and what that means we like to talk about it as like three legs of a stool. So those three legs of the stool are people which would be the social side. So that equates to corporate social responsibility. Planet would be the environmental stewardship side, which is the environmental side. Then profit or economic viability would be making sure that the business you're doing is making money while you're doing

Meet Duncan Duncan is the CEO of Littlefield, a company that owns companies such as the Littlefield Company, Paper Airplane Sidecar who are critical equity partner contributors to profit-focused companies. The engine of his company is the Littlefield Company, where they tell under-told stories by delivering scalable content for purpose-driven companies. Plus, he's on a mission to always be a part of the larger conversation and to support everyone to become obsessed with their own unique life. What is the importance of story when it comes to marketing for a business? It's one of the things that we recognized as we kind of dug deeper into what we really do well, is that side of the story. Every business owner started a company for a reason. They wanted to connect to an audience, they wanted to sell something, they wanted to be a part of the community, whatever it was. We really want to tell those under-told stories that people don't know about. You walk into a company, and you can put two things together to

Meet Brad  Brad has been supporting and improving the lives of those around him for over four decades. He has brought perspective and context into every role he has had. Having been in manufacturing for most of his adult career, he has forged relationships by learning what matters to the people. In doing so, Brad was able to master the art of change management. Working with family-owned blue-collar businesses as a customer and supplier, Brad understands both sides of the industry creating growth and wealth.  In your line of work, you do a lot with regard to accountability and setting expectations. Can you speak to our listeners a little bit about why it's so important to have set expectations and accountability? It's important for multiple reasons. When you look at it from a business owner’s perspective, it's important to know what your team is going to accomplish, not so much the tasks that they need to do, but what are the results that you're looking for? And clearly communicating that expectation becaus

Meet Dave Having started his first business in fourth-grade programming bulletin board systems, working for Apple Computers as a college freshman, and then founding a computer networking services company employing college classmates while in college, Dave Stamm has been has always been passionate about implementing technology and serving people. Dave is currently the CEO of two technology companies, Stamm Technologies and Stamm Media, and a partner at No Small Magic.  Can you just tell us a little bit about these three different companies that you have? So the first company that I started in college was Stamm Technologies and we provide outsourced IT services to small and medium-sized companies in Metro Milwaukee and Chicagoland areas. Then we later started Stamm Media as an offshoot. It was a client that we had been working with for years in the IT company and that is Stamm Media and we provide technology services and equipment, to large trade shows and corporate events throughout the country. So we rent

Meet Tobin When experts are ready to create more conversations with perfect prospects, they call Tobin at bookofexperts.com. He's been called an introverted savant with a superpower for helping you find your tribe and sparking conversations out of thin air. This new book is called Experts Never Chase, because deep down we all know that chasing undermines the hard-won trust and authority of subject matter experts so he helps entrepreneurs find the easy path dialog that drives sales.  Why did you write the book, Experts Never Chase? What's the big idea behind it? So our book just came out last month. We launched on May the fourth, and since we launched, we've had a successful Kickstarter, which was a unique experience to launch the book with that and I think we're on four or five bestseller lists now. So that's been a new experience for me, I've never done the book thing. My co-author on the book, Cat Stancik has published once before so she had a little bit more experience and it has been great getting some

Meet Joel Joel is the proud author of Formans Financial Facts, a financial management blueprint. His mission is to educate people so that they can manage their personal finances with confidence for life. Over the past 30 years, Joel has worked in corporate America and a variety of financial roles. He started in traditional financial roles in the financial services and baking industries. About 16 years ago, he successfully moved into the consulting world.  Why is it so important to have a personal budget? Well, a personal budget to me, is really the foundation for anyone's financial management and money management needs. By building a personal budget, you're going to understand where you're spending your money, what you're spending it on, and you're going to make sure that you're bringing home enough money on a monthly basis to not only cover those fixed and variable expenses but to also have money left over to what I like to call pay yourself for savings and investment opportunities. If you don't have a go

Meet Eric Eric is the co-founder of Blue C, a California-based brand strategy and creative marketing agency. Since 1998 Eric has been helping companies across both b2b and b2c segments. Eric is a second-generation marketer and actively supports clients’ growth dreams through the Blue C Brand PWR platform and the Six Systems To Success. On a personal basis, Eric spends 16 weekends a year in Baja California and is the co-founder of The California Love Job, which cares for frontline workers.  How important is brand strategy for companies that want to grow? Well, what's interesting is that our company focuses first and foremost on brand strategy. The platform we have is called Brand Power and the very first step is always about brand strategy, brand messaging, clarity and positioning. It's interesting, because in the last 12 to 18 months, we have had so many more companies come to us and ask us to go through our Brand Power clarity process than ever before. A lot of people think that branding and marketing flo

Meet Katie Katie is a writer specializing in customer case studies. She has written for technology and education companies and coaches of all types. In her free time, Katie enjoys baking, reading fantasy novels, and going on road trips with her husband. Katie lives in Wisconsin and thinks cheese should be in its own food group. Can you share with our listeners what a customer case study is? A customer case study is the success story of how a client or customer has gotten results through a product or service. So basically it takes your happy customer from how they found you, why they decided to work with you, through that experience of working with you, and down to the results that they got when they had finished working with you. What are some characteristics of an ideal customer to feature in a case study? So customers that make a great fit have likely told you that they are happy with the work that you both did together. They may have recommended you to others, which is great because a customer case st

Meet Melinda Melinda is a sales coach who specializes in helping female entrepreneurs sell to corporations. Not only does she coach how to sell, she still practices her own sales. Melinda works as a sales executive and holds an impressive track record of over $40 million. With 20 plus years of b2b sales experience, she is determined to help other women expand their impact by selling to big companies. She also leads a Facebook community of amazing women trailblazers called B2B Women Making Big Sales. How do small business owners sell to big clients? Yeah, I think this is usually the first question people have. When we are small entrepreneurs, and we look at other people going after or working with more established businesses and corporations, and a lot of times they look at fellow entrepreneurs that are able to have an impressive client list. A lot of people often ask me, how can I sell to corporations, and I personally think in today's world, the world has gone through so many changes and companies are act

Meet Mike Mike graduated in 2015 from William Paterson University, where he studied New and Digital Marketing Methods. During his senior year, he accepted an internship at an advertising agency that specialized in marketing for manufacturing and logistics companies. This is where he developed his passion for manufacturing that ultimately led him to the New Jersey Manufacturing Extensions Program where he can actively make a difference and support the industry. Why are you advocating so vigorously for the manufacturing industry? It kind of goes off of the fact that it's been stigmatized. Manufacturing, when people think about it, they think the dark, dirty, dangerous facilities in the Henry Ford videos of the assembly line where right now it's so beyond that image, where it without talking about advocating for it, students, young adults won't know that the industry average salary in New Jersey is over $94,000 a year. That impact on the nation of high-paying jobs, the impact to the GDP of the nation itself i

Meet Jeff  Jeff is a life architect, owner of Creative Web Studios, and mentor to young entrepreneurs. Many people will tell you where to go, what to do and how to live, but there's a higher path and calling inside of you that only you can unearth. It's time to stop living by other people's scripts and expectations for your life and have your own awakening.  So let's talk about your marketing agency. How did you get started? Sure. So I followed up a pretty typical entrepreneurial dream. If you're like me, you go to school, perhaps your parents tell you to go to college, or they want to push you to get some stable jobs somewhere. So I did all that I had a good run, I went to the University of North Florida, got my computer science degree, and quickly here in Jacksonville, Florida launched out into corporate working at a large municipality, so electric, water, wastewater, and there are about 2000 people there. I enjoyed it and had a pension plan to work there for 32 years get 80% of your salary for life. I r